


Alice's Gap Year

by Bookwormsarah



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-03
Updated: 2012-05-03
Packaged: 2017-11-04 18:36:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/396952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookwormsarah/pseuds/Bookwormsarah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Women of Torchwood commentfic party in tw_femficfest at livejournal. The prompt was "That time when Alice moved as far from Cardiff as she could get and there were damn aliens there too."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alice's Gap Year

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to eldarwannabe for the prompt!

Alice made no secret that she wanted to go away to university, but it was a surprise to her mother when Alice announced she was taking a gap year first. Lucia was sanguine, and offered to pay her fare to Italy, mentioning relatives who would be happy to give her a job. Alice smiled sweetly, and shook her head. Everyone knew that Uncle Giacco's vineyard was a front for the Italian version of Torchwood (above ground, more relaxed attitude and vastly better pizza), and she wanted to get as far away from aliens as possible.

Egypt was amazing, but there was a particular smell in the second pyramid and Alice's heart sank. Her Arabic was limited to a few words (and she wasn't convinced that her father had taught her the polite versions), and none of the phrase books offered to translate "Excuse me but there is a weevil in this tunnel. It skuttled out of sight as she approached, and after a few moments Alice decided that it was probably safe and out of the way. Egypt wasn't like Somalia ('pirates' being the catch-all explanation for strange happenings), and the weevil seemed non aggressive. Still, time to move on.

The safari in Kenya was a revelation, as the guide blythly explained the six horned 'antelope' as a rare species ("No pictures, please, the hunters you see..."). Alice decided that the explanation would have been more plausible if it hadn't been covered in green scales.

In Peru the guinea pigs near the mountain top temple squeeked in an uncannily accurate morse code, and later that night she slipped out to release them so that they could be collected by their shuttle. The perception filter slipped as they were beamed away, revealing something orange and furry. Lucia would have liked them, thought Alice, putting away her penknife, she had a fondness for unusual forms of communication.

Roswell was a strange experience. She had expected a good laugh, but instead all she felt was sadness. The museum was full of 'genuine artefects', but nothing she recognised. Later, sitting in a diner served by a waitress wearing green deely boppers, she wondered whether real aliens had been found, and whether they had been caught and killed by an American agency. Suddenly she felt a long way from home. Two small children looked at her as she left, and she felt the hairs on her neck stand on end. This place was definitely getting to her. Time to move on.

Japan, Thailand and Indonesia were relatively alien free, and Alice truely felt she had left Torchwood behind her. That was until she stood in front of Sydney Opera House and registered the shape properly for the first time. Oh dear.


End file.
